An experimental study on intestinal vascular lesions: a comparison between the effects of arterial and venous occlusion in the acute phase.

In order to clarify what early ischemic changes are produced by venous interruption in the intestine, intestinal vascular lesions caused by peripheral venous ligation were compared with those caused by arterial ligation in rabbits. With less than 30 min ligation, there were only 4 specimens from a total 13 without injury following venous ligation, whereas there were 7 from a total 11 without injury following arterial ligation. After 30 min venous ligation, both the mucosal and submucosal layers of all 10 specimens were affected, while following arterial ligation, 3 of the 11 specimens showed no histological changes. Moreover, in 3 of the remaining 8 specimens from the latter group, the injury was confined to within the mucosal layer. Thus, in cases of venous interruption, intestinal injury might be evoked earlier with more severe damage than in cases of arterial interruption.